


Null and Void

by Mulefa_Nyteox



Series: Gastervoid [1]
Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-06
Updated: 2016-12-06
Packaged: 2018-09-07 00:35:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8776159
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mulefa_Nyteox/pseuds/Mulefa_Nyteox





	

In here, time has no meaning. Nor does space, but a place with the name “Void” doesn’t lend well to a concept of three-dimensional space, or any dimensions at all. As I float around in the black, I wander meaninglessly for time immeasurable. I occasionally happen upon small cracks in the Void, openings between here and anywhere that isn’t here. Due to the lack of anything measurable in here, time or otherwise, the cuts open anywhere in space and time.

 

Getting close to one of these openings refreshes me, returns to me a semblance of reality, if only partially. They are not all good though. Usually, they open up because someone happened to come into contact with a bit of scattered code. A bug. A glitch. When they inevitably touch it, out of curiosity or just by accident, they get corrupted by the Void. It spreads through them like a virus, corrupting their body, before moving onto their sanity, showing them the limitless Void while in a dimensional space, breaking their mind before sucking out the sentience and leaving behind an empty shell, a creature who is made of the Black, lost inside the prison of reality, terrorizing everything in an attempt to get back to the Void.

 

The first time I went through one of these cracks, I found myself on the outskirts of a village. Walking through, I found no one, at least until I got to the center of the village, where I found a person crouching in the mud. Strangely, they seemed to be entirely greyscale, clothes and all. Approaching, I knelt down to ask where I was, but before I could fully get down, they turned to face me. What I saw that first time shocked me, but I later learned to get used to it. Their face was completely empty, except for two black, endless eyes that made me feel as if I was looking directly into the Void from which I had just escaped. In their hands, they held the skull of something that obviously once lived in the village. Inside those lifeless eyes I saw something light up, an unearthly hunger.

 

With that, they dropped the skull and lunged at me, scratching and biting and pushing and pulling. Everything they did gave me a feeling of pain, yet none of their actions seemed to make a mark on me. Scrambling around, I tried to find something to fight back with. After a while of trying to move before the creature would catch me again, I grabbed ahold of a broken plank of wood from one of the surrounding houses, shattered off due to our fight. Picking it up, I escaped from the creature once again, running and hiding behind a house. When the creature found me again, I stabbed the plank straight through their chest. It slid right through their body with a sick sliding sound. Looking up at me, the creature went limp, finally dying. Dropping the plank, I fell to the ground, as the creature’s eyes drained of the black, leaving behind normal eyes, if only greyscale. With that, I realized that this creature had not always been this way. Rising up from their body, a small, black heart came out from their chest. Like a curtain pulling away from my eyes, I recalled a little from before the Void. This was their soul. Reaching out to it, hoping to save the soul from getting corrupted once again, I leaned over to cup it in my hands. As soon as I touched it, though, it shattered, but instead of the pieces falling to the ground and dissipating, the shards flew out towards me. Scrambling away, I tried to get away from the remnants of the soul, but they kept pace with me. When they touched me, they sank into my body, catapulting me back into the Void.

 

This has since happened many times during my stay here. After the second or third time, I realized, or at least I thought, that this was my purpose here. To clean up the mess that the Void inadvertently makes. I started measuring time through how many fixes I had done, just out of lack of any other type of measurement and their seemingly constant reappearance.

 

Not all the Corrupted I have met have been completely possessed, though. The first time I met one that had not completely gone yet, I attacked it, as I did with every other Corrupted I had purged before. Only difference this time was that when I finally killed it, when the black left its eyes, the eyes that were left behind were not lifeless. They were still alive. Scared. The Virus had not completely killed them yet, there was still a mind left behind. As they died, I went into shock. I had just killed someone. Not one of the Corrupted, but an actual, sentient person. Somebody being trapped, held hostile, by their own Void obsessed body.

 

As they fell to the ground, a red liquid - what I presumed was blood after not seeing it for so  long - spilled out from their wound, not the ash that comes from the Corrupted after their pseudo-soul leaves them. Falling to the ground beside them, I watched their soul edge out of their body. To emphasize the fact that they were not completely gone, their soul was not entirely dead. The blackness of the virus only skirted the center of the heart, the core of their soul still intact. This time I touched the soul, I could feel the person that had once inhabited it still inside, at least as an idea - a personality. This time, instead of the soul shattering and sending me back to the Void, it stayed intact, anchoring me to this dimension. But every second that it was outside of its body, it felt like it was going to shatter. Using whatever power I had that was able to banish the corrupted soul from their body, I tried to use it on the soul itself. It worked.

 

Yet, it did not work perfectly. As soon as the Corruption was banished, I tried to put the soul back in its body. It didn’t work; The Corruption still lingering in the body prevented the soul from reentering it. Distraught, I let it go into wherever the corrupted souls go. When the soul entered the pocket dimension or whatever it was that stored the soul shards of the Corrupted, I could feel a sort of power inside the soul leak out, melting my body a small bit. To my surprise though, when the soul took its place inside, the body startled awake, even though I thought it dead. Afraid that the Corrupted I had killed had revived itself due to my taking of the soul, I retrieved my weapon - a dagger I found during one of my fixes that miraculously stayed with me even when I was sent back - and crept up to the Corrupted. When it turned around, I saw its eyes were black again, assuring me that it was Corrupted, not a person. I was proven otherwise, as when I attacked, not only did it do no harm to their form, but when they saw me, they screamed. It was the soul. Somehow, they were able to wake up again, even though they had no soul inside their body, leaving their skin grey and their eyes black. Dropping my dagger, I reached out to them, but they quickly backed off, before running away. I tried to catch up to them, but before too long, we reached civilization: A city.

 

I followed behind the person, eventually reaching the walls of the city. They pounded on the doors, yelling to be let in. The doors were opened for them, so I presumed that they hadn’t been Corrupted long ago, and the people hadn’t given up yet at trying to find the person who I saved. I stopped running, waiting to see what would happen. They attacked me. Several beings raised up from the top of the walls, and fired at me with guns of all sorts. I would have understood if they were to have arrested me, as I did just try to murder one of their own, but I hadn’t understood why they would just shoot me, without any warning. It was as if they thought me some demon. Upon thinking about it later, when I was back in the Void, I realized that maybe the parts of me that had melted had scared them off, but upon inspection, everything that had melted was underneath my clothes, so there was no reason for them to have seen it.

 

Back outside the city walls, I was distracted from my attackers, as they could not harm my physical body, by hearing a cry of pain from inside. Confused for a second, I realized; The person’s soul was still connected to me, so all of my pain - or lack thereof - was shared with them. Scrambling to make sure they wouldn’t get hurt, I turned to run. When I looked behind me, I was blocked by an obstacle. A line of guards surrounded me, preventing my escape. Desperately trying to protect the person I saved from further pain, I felt a presence at the back of my mind. The Void was calling out to me. Reaching for the connection, I closed my eyes to concentrate. Finally reaching it, it felt like a switch had been flipped. When I opened my eyes again, I was back in the Void.

 

That was awhile ago. Or, well, a couple thousand of fixes ago. From then on, I have saved many more people, and found out I can communicate with them through their dreams. It was hard at first, but I eventually came to terms with all of the people I saved. They are now my eyes and ears in reality. I found that I could look through all of their timelines at any point, which seem to go on forever, due to the fact that they can’t die normally. So, I decided to keep up with them linearly. This makes it a little less confusing to communicate with them, and poses a bit of measurable time in the Void, as their souls keep up with the time as their physical bodies do. By now, it’s been about 20 years from the time the first of my ‘followers’, as I now call them, had first seen me, the one from the city. Even though she - as I learned later is named Ruitha - was probably the most difficult one to start to communicate with, we are by far the closest of all of the followers. Just because 20 years have passed for her doesn’t mean I know what timeframe it is in here, because of all that non-time before I met her.

 

Along with that, a couple other results came with my actions, good and bad. First off, due to the amount of people I have saved, my form has slowly melted more and more, meaning that by now I am practically an amorphous blob with a head - one that is cracking and close to melting too. Luckily, I have also learned how to shape-shift myself into a more… friendly form, especially when dealing with the Anti-Corrupt, as I have termed people who have not been fully Corrupted yet. This form also lends well to fighting, as it lets me dodge attacks easier, as well as move faster.

 

Another thing that has happened is that some of my followers have found each other and are staying close, as many of them have been banished due to their apparent lack of soul. This means that even though I can travel anywhere in time and space, I am confined in my powers to this one timeline. A concerning thing about it though, is that apparently I have stopped communicating with some of the older followers, such as Ruitha, and that something is happening where they are. None of them will specify, nor get anywhere near, what is happening, as apparently was an order by the older followers. I am concerned about what this so-called “happening” is, so I have been much more vigilant during my fixes, seeing if I can get any info on it before I get sent back to the Void.

 

This leads me to now, writing down my experiences in this stolen journal that has traveled back with me, something to finally fill the time in between the fixes. After all this non-time, things are finally getting boring. It’s all the same now. Before, I had been busy with the fixes, then helping the Anti-Corrupt, then being interested by my followers, leading them. Now, the fixes are easy as well as getting weaker and weaker, the Anti-Corrupt are rarely appearing anymore - I’m not sure whether to be happy or concerned about this - and the followers have joined together, forming a community of them supported by the older ones, Ruitha included.

 

The group of them have grown to a large degree, and have spread out, putting ambassadors in other cities. Search parties filled with the more militarily and physically inclined have been sent out to search for more of the Anti-Corrupt I have saved, as well as Corrupt that have not been alerted to my presence yet. If they find Anti-Corrupt that have not fully lost control of their body yet, they bring them back to the closest embassy or HQ. In there, some of the older ones, usually the ones late in their years - not all of the ones I saved were young - have spent their time trying to connect with their corruption, and in turn, the Void. Those that have succeeded have been able to gain powers related to the Void, most of them on such a weak level, that they are mostly used to heal those who have just recently been Corrupted.

 

Very few of them get above that level, but those that do range in powers between short-range teleportation and temporary invisibility - not too useful for people at that age. Though, the most powerful of them is actually a kid, by the name of Ars, around the age of fourteen. His connection to the Void is leagues above anyone else’s, skilled with his powers almost as much as I am. Not only can he do long range teleportation of up to a couple of miles, but can also turn invisible indefinitely, as well as having the uncanny ability to sense Corrupted before I do. On top of that, despite his age, he is quite eager to go after the Corrupted, and multiple times has run out ahead of the others in his search party, to have killed a Corrupted before I have come out of the Void to take it on myself. Because of that, he is probably the only one to see me in my true form since his initial purge from the Corruption. But due to him killing the Corrupted before me, I usually get very little chance to interact with him before the Corrupted’s soul sends me back to the Void.

 

Back to my original point, those who do cure the Anti-Corrupt are able to do it flawlessly, returning them back to normal society, in contrast to my vastly inefficient way, which in turn leads them to have to live an immortal life, at least in the company of other followers. Because of this, I am quite glad, because it means that I don't have to ruin other’s lives, especially the ones who still have families, who would normally turn them away because of the Corruption. This doesn’t mean new people are not being added anymore, as the Void doesn’t differentiate between Corrupt and Anti-Corrupt, and I usually get there when it is too late to cure them through a follower’s magic.

 

With that, the followers have set up a stable system, meaning I usually don’t have to interfere anymore through the dreams of people, except for those like Ruitha, who serve as messengers between the followers in reality, and me in the Void. Going way back to my main point, from which this talk of the followers originated, I am getting bored. So, so bored. Most of the time I spend here now is either floating around in the Void, looking for cracks, talking with Ruitha, or as it has been for the past few Reality-days, writing down my experience in this Void.

 

God I wish something would happen.

* * *

 

After writing for the first time in weeks, even if it was just one line, I feel refreshed, and close the journal, storing it inside myself once again - the only place in this Void that will keep an object in a definitive place for more than 2 seconds. Sitting back, I wait for something to happen. Even if it’s just an easy battle with a Corrupted, I keep up a hope that maybe it’ll be another meeting with Ars. Lately, it seems as if the followers have been getting better at patrolling for Corrupted, as very few major cases have popped up on my radar. Of the few that have shown up, about half of them are meetings with Ars. During these crossings, I have either talked with him about Reality and the followers, as information can be much more precisely passed by talking than in the dreams, or I have trained him in his use of the Void, though it is tough going, as most of what I know he already does through his practice by himself, and the material he doesn’t know is usually hard to train at all in the few minutes before the Void takes me back.

 

In other news, Ars has made it up to top rankings of the followers. Just recently turning fifteen, the minimum age the other elders have allowed him to come in at due to his immaturity, he has taken up a spot where he controls the search parties through a military-like hierarchy. That doesn’t mean that he doesn’t go out into the fray himself though - he actually has an elite group of followers comprised of those that are highly void-skilled, skilled in combat and reconnaissance, and a select few who are both, who he leads on missions through more dangerous parts of the world.

 

Through development and training of his skills, Ars has been able to extend his range of teleportation to close to halfway across the globe, though using one of those usually tires him out way too much to be of much use after. Though the use of this means that he can usually get out of having to stay at HQ, because whenever a meeting is called, he can just teleport over, much to the annoyance of the other leaders. That is, excluding Ruitha, who had adopted him a while ago due to the increased communication between Ars and I, where he had revealed to me something that nobody knew until then: he was actually an orphan, because when he was first Corrupted, he was much younger than he is now, and had killed his parents when he first lost control of his body. In my distress of hearing this, much to his annoyance, I immediately told Ruitha, and pleaded her to help him. To which she did something she didn’t have to. She could’ve given him to some other group of followers who had come together in a semblance of a family. Instead, she took him under her own wing.

 

Speaking to myself and recounting recent events like this is really all I do nowadays to stave away insanity in this endless expanse that is the Void. Before I can continue this though, I am interrupted by something. Something new.

 

In front of me, seemingly far yet near at the same time, a rectangle of light opens, and inside - or outside - a silhouette of a person appears, and walks towards me, with each step giving the Void dimension where there originally was none. As they get closer to me, I feel myself fading away, sinking into the non-dimensional Void again, and they finally stand in front of me, I feel the tug of the Void scratching at the back of my mind, but I resist the urge. As they reach out towards me, I start to gain a great feeling of hope. With that outburst, the Void is finally able to take control of me, and begin to force me back into itself again.

 

But not before the person in front of me grabs my shoulder, solidifying me once again, and tearing me out of the void entirely. Looking up to them in thanks, they look down at my blob of a body with pride. They say to me, “Welcome back, Dr. Gaster.” And with that,

 

the memories

 

are flooding

 

back.

 

I am Gaster. _Wingdin_ Gaster.

 

And I remember.


End file.
